West Vancouver

West Vancouver occupies a narrow shelf of land between Burrard Inlet and the ridgelines of Cypress Provincial Park, stretching roughly 87 square kilometres from the Capilano River in the east to Howe Sound in the west. Incorporated in [1912](https://westvancouver.ca/), the District is home to about 44,000 residents and forms the western half of what locals simply call the North Shore — the other half being the City and District of North Vancouver across the Capilano. The geography shapes almost everything about daily life here. The shoreline runs the full length of Marine Drive, with the Centennial Seawalk threading between the village centres of Ambleside and Dundarave. Above the road, the land climbs quickly into forested hillsides and eventually into the trail networks of Hollyburn Mountain and the Cypress ski area. At the western end, Horseshoe Bay anchors the [BC Ferries](https://westvancouver.ca/) terminal that connects the Lower Mainland to Nanaimo, the Sunshine Coast, and Bowen Island. There is no SkyTrain on this side of the inlet — the [Lions Gate Bridge](https://westvancouver.ca/), opened in 1938, is the main link to downtown Vancouver, supplemented by the R2 Marine RapidBus and a handful of local routes along Marine Drive. The neighbourhoods that follow are genuinely distinct: a walkable seaside village around Ambleside, the quieter cafés and beach of Dundarave, the ferry-town rhythm of Horseshoe Bay, the old-growth forest around Lighthouse Park at Point Atkinson, and the hillside enclaves rising up toward the British Properties. Each one offers a different relationship to the water, the mountains, and the rest of the region.